The present invention is related to a process and apparatus for making waffle products of various shapes, especially having a cone or similar shape for ice cream and foods. It is known that the waffle products most widely consumed are in the form of a creamy dough that is called a batter, before cooking, while after cooking they exhibit a well defined shape or a precise preset thickness.
To achieve said preset thickness, which is especially important in the case of ice cream waffles having a conical or similar shape, cooking is to be carried out in the gap between a die and counterdie, the heat being delivered by application of direct flame to said dies or by embedding electric resistances in the dies.
Particularly for making cone shaped ice cream waffles, essentially two different processes have been used up to now, each one requiring a specific device.
A first process can be used for producing waffles that, due to their composition, are soft at the end of the cooking process. The first step of said process is to make a flat waffle by cooking said batter between a flat plate and counterplate.
Heat sources, for example burner flames, are directly applied on to the closed plates for the time needed to cook the batter and transform it into a waffle layer. The plates perform therefore as real cooking unit.
The soft cooked waffle is subjected while hot to the final shaping operation, for example by winding it on a suitable mould. During shaping, the waffle cools down and gradually sets, finally keeping the imposed shape.
Said first process is used to make high quality waffles from a batter having a sugar content as high as 40%, by weight and higher, based on the weight of flour. In fact, just sugar is the main cause of waffles not setting during cooking and of the need that they be intensively cooled to achieve stable shapes.
By means of the first process above, cones and cups having a specially pleasent taste are therefore obtained. The high sugar rate also has the merit of imparting to the waffles better friability and good impermeability and resistance to absorbing liquids.
A second process is addressed to the production of cones and similar shapes from a batter that, due to its composition, sets during cooking, thus giving rise to waffles the shape of which is already stable even when hot. This process comprises the steps of delivering the batter between die and counterdie, said die and counterdie having any shape, and of delivering heat to the moulds by means of burner flames.
These moulds too, like the above-mentioned plates, perform the double function of real moulds and cooking ovens. In fact, said moulds in some cases comprise electric resistances for the production of heat, said electric resistances being embedded in said moulds.
For the shape to be stable at the moment it is extracted from the moulds, the batter should not contain more than 20 weight % sugar based on the flour component. A percent of about 20% is enough for the waffle to be dangerously soft and capable of being deformed at the moment it is taken out of the moulds, thus giving rise to possible deformation. Said second process, though it makes only possible to produce lower quality waffle products, allows nevertheless the production, by means of said moulds, of ice cream waffles having various different conical and similar shapes. This process has therefore widely spread. The above methods have some important drawbacks. To assure the necessary uniform cooking, both of the above-mentioned processes require that plates or dies having a high thermal inertia, that is a heavy mass, be used.
The heavy mass is necessary for the heat delivery to the waffles to be rendered uniform in every point, for the flames to be kept as displaced as possible, and for the temperature to be kept as constant as possible. But the heavy mass of the plate and die brings about their high cost, thus hindering a frequent renewal of the shape of the waffles.
The cost of the plates and dies is a considerable one also due to the fact that the same, being subject to temperatures of more than one thousand degrees centigrades on the flame-facing side, have to be so built as not to be heat-deformed. The direct application of the heat sources causes then the cooking to be non-accurate and difficult, evidently due to the violence of the applied heating and to the fact that said heating can change continuously due both to changes of burner efficiency and to very small variations of the time during which the burner flame is applied.
Moreover, an intensive thermal dispersion and a corresponding heat waste are produced. In fact, the heat that is not absorbed by the plate is given off to the environment thus becoming useless.
A typical drawback of the first process is a certain complexity of the steps of taking the waffle out of the plates and successively hot-shaping said flat waffle. Moreover--and most important--the first process does not allow one to produce conical and similar waffles having a complex or fantasy shape that would stimulate the interest of consumers, for example of a shape having a plurality of different coves or cavities, said coves or cavities being adapted to receive different qualities of ice cream.
The second process allows shapes of whatever kind to be obtained, but the employed waffle is one of a lower quality and taste due to the low sugar content.
It never appeared to be possible to unify the above processes to possibly obtain high quality waffles the shape of which could at the same time be freely chosen. In fact, if the known processes were used for cooking in moulds a batter having a high sugar content, very high costs due to heat waste would ensue at every production cycle: the mould temperature must be reduced from the cooking temperature, which is markedly higher than 200 degrees centigrade, to a temperature of about 100 degrees centigrade, that is more than halved, for the waffles having a sugar content higher than 20% to become firm enough for them to be demoulded without the occurrence of deformation.
Due to the high thermal inertia of the mould, non unacceptable times would ensue for cooling down and heating again said moulds, giving rise to excessively and abnormally long production time and unsustainable costs.